Back in February of 1909 the NAACP was founded, in part, to “advance the interests of colored citizens … and to increase their opportunities for education.”
Apparently E. St. Louis NAACP Branch President Stanley Franklin and his officers failed to read their own mission statement, that is, if one were to judge from the scholarship recipients at their 60th Annual Freedom Fund Awards Banquet held, recently, at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in St. Louis.
Three of the four scholarship recipients – Brian Fitzgerald, son of Belleville News-Democrat reporter Mike Fitzgerald; Noor Aftab; and Joseph Kirkpatrick – are all non-black students who attend the prestigious Governor French Academy of Belleville, IL. One African-American student, Destiny Brandy of East St. Louis Senior High, tied for third place.
What’s wrong with this picture, aside from the awkward visual optics and the obvious insult to the African-American community? And how does the ESL NAACP and Stanley Franklin have the audacity to see nothing wrong or to justify such a flagrant slight to their community?
Perhaps it is because the banquet was chaired by powerful Belleville attorney Bruce Cook, and the chair of the scholarship committee was none other than Erin Kern (wife of St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern), rendering the officers of the ESL NAACP to the status of mere spectators and sycophants.
And, historically, when an African-American organization (like the NAACP) allows white politicians to chair, control and sponsor black events, the whites tend to dictate the tone, tenor and, in this case, the honorees for such so-called “black” affairs.
Stanley Franklin, a former member of the Nation of Islam, should know better. But, apparently, when Stanley threw away his bowties and Final Calls he also discarded everything that Min. Louis Farrakhan ever taught him, namely, to “love your own and do for self.”
It is a travesty and hypocritical, on a number of levels, to reward three non-black students with scholarships intended for black students; particularly when those students already have the added advantage of attending a college prep academy – while the lone black recipient comes from a disadvantaged background and failing public school system.
No wonder blacks (like myself) view the ESL NAACP, skeptically, as an organization which has lost its vision, moral compass and has been relegated to prostituting itself for crumbs from the white power structure in order to fund their banquets and scholarship programs which, in this case, don’t even benefit their own people.
I recall a speech in which Min. Farrakhan very brilliantly stated, “He who gives you the diameter of your knowledge prescribes the circumference of your activity.” I ask, Stanley Franklin, who prescribes the circumference of YOUR activity? I think we both know the answer.
And while Stanley Franklin and the officers of the ESL NAACP may, by and large, be highly educated and accomplished individuals, they have failed their people, the city of East St. Louis and our youth with this affront to the NAACP’s very own mission.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com; Twitter@JamesTIngram.
